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Thursday, August 21, 2008

As many of you may or may not know, I had a heart attack in May of 2006. One of the things that I have had to deal with is the high cost of my medications. A friend of mine who lives in Texas told me about a website called Your Rx Card. She told me that she had used it and saved a good deal of money on her prescription costs.

So, here is how it works. Go to their website at : http://www.yourrxcard.com ,and there you will see a box where you type in your first name, your last name, and your email address (don't worry, no junk email or emails from this site come to you at all), and then click on Get Card Now. When your card appears, print it out, and then take it to your pharmacy and ask them to add the card to your file.

If you have several household members who need medications, you will need to make a card for each of them as well. You can use the same email address for each family member, just type in their first and last names , click Get Card Now, and print it out.

Also, be sure to put in your zip code in the Pharmacy Locator box and the site will give you the names of pharmacies in your area that accept this card. If you live in a small town like I do, you might want to select a distance of at least 20 miles. You will be surprised (as I was) to find this card is accepted at many national chains as well as locally owned pharmacies.

You will want to click on the Medication Pricing Box as well. There you can type in the name of a medication you or a family member is taking, and they will show you the prices being charged at your area pharmacies.

Friday, August 01, 2008

“All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you.”--Gandalf from Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

How do we decide what to do with the time given to us? Far too often, we take the time given us for granted and behave as though we have all the time in the world to do the things we should do, and what we hope to do. Many times we are dealt a hand that leads us on a path we never thought we would take, or maybe even more correctly, a path we never wanted to take. So, the things we hoped for in life, dreamed of in life never happen, or sometimes begin and are ended for reasons we can not understand, and often find difficult to accept and live with. When our dreams are shattered, when the carpet is pulled out from under us we far too often have a hard time letting go and moving on. So, what do we do, and how do we cope?

We can take one of two paths when we are faced with obstacles in our life path. First, we can weep, and moan and groan, and throw ourselves one big pity party. We can sit and dwell on the past, feel sorry for ourselves, and convince ourselves to quit and give up, for if we have failed, what is the point of trying? I don’t recall who said it now, but, it is a great quote, “failure is not falling down. Failure is falling down and not trying to get up again”. When we fail, there is usually one reason we do fail, and that is our relying on ourselves and totally leaving God out of the picture. We begin to think of ourselves more and more, and rely on ourselves more and more, and too often, we forget that it is not we who are responsible for what we have and have become, but, it is God. We become responsible for who we are and what we have become when we leave God out altogether. That doesn’t mean we should just give God the credit when we have time or when we think of it, but, it means we should thank God each and every day, and even several times a day.

You say you are too busy? You don’t have the time? Why do you not have the time for God, when He has time for you every day, all day? When we don’t take time for God, then what we are saying is, that we and our self centeredness are more important than God is. We have forgotten the formula for a happy, complete, and total life. That formula is to always place God first, others second, and ourselves last. When we place ourselves first, before God and before our brothers and sisters, then we are not making wise use of the time given to us. We are throwing away the time and the life that God has given us, and we are wasting our time and our life by worshipping at the altar of self and self indulgence. When we place ourselves first, when we become more important than God, when we become more important than our brothers, our sisters, our neighbors and our friends, then in essence, we have made ourselves god.

I am reminded of a true story related to me by a man who frequents the neighborhood store where I once worked. He was telling me how his church was cleaning up around the church cemetery, and he and his three sons were helping in the project. His youngest son is nine years old, and he was amazed at some of the dates on the various headstones and monuments. His father was explaining to him that the church had been there a long time, so there would be a lot of dates from long ago. The boy stood there looking at one of the old headstones, and said to his taken aback father, “but, you know dad, the important part is not when someone is born or when they died. The important part is that little dash in between”.

So, what are we…you and I…going to do with “that little dash in between”? Do we work for God and for others, or do we wallow in self-pity, selfishness, and indifference? I think I want my “little dash” to have meant something. How about you?